A Little Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

I met Cristina on the R train several weeks back.

The weather was just beginning to turn cooler, and I noticed that summer had ended quickly, with no gradual diminishing of tattoo sightings, but a sudden disappearance, like shutting the light switch off in a large, bright room at midnight.

Cristina had this small, unusual tattoo on her foot:


Despite being small, I was curious to learn about this design.

Cristina explained that her husband travels a lot and that, on a whim, they each got sun tattoos while in Dallas. The designs are slightly different.


She told me her husband thought the sun tattoos were perfect for them because, he said, when they're together, he's walking on sunshine.

You can look at that as incredibly corny, incredibly romantic, or a mixture of the two. Cristina acknowledged that when she looks at her tattoo, it reminds her of what her husband said, about walking on sunshine, and that makes her laugh, which makes her happy, which can be a solace when her husband is traveling.

All from a little tattoo!

Thanks to Cristina for sharing her tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

The Tattooed Poets Project: Rachel Mallino's Vine Entwines

Today's tattoo is from Rachel Mallino:

Rachel explains this tattoo:

"This piece was done in the summer of 2001, on a vacation to New York City. A friend and I were walking the Village together and I decided to stop at a random tattoo parlor- unfortunately, the name of the parlor escapes me. I had been playing around with the idea of getting a tattoo on my foot for several reasons, one of them being that the foot was not a popular place to have a tattoo at the time. I wanted something like a vine that symbolized my very unhealthy relationship with my mother, a subject I also write a lot about. I didn’t have anything sketched out, so I approached one of the artists and told her what I wanted. She was able to find a ready-made outline of a vine that looked similar to what I had imagined. I told her to use the outline but directed her in which direction and how I wanted the tat to wrap around my middle toe, up the foot and around my ankle. For the record: it was really painful. Artistically, I don’t think the tattoo is spectacular. Conceptually, I’m pretty pleased. People ask me all the time what it means, and I never tell them. In fact, I haven’t really told you, either."

Thanks to Rachel for sending us this tattoo.

Please head over to BillyBlog to read one of Rachel's poems here.